Odysseus saved the day. He leaped into a vacant chariot – where was his? – and turned the Boiotians when they began to bolt, swung them round to face the enemy and then forced them to give ground quietly and in perfect order. Agamemnon followed his example immediately; what had threatened to become a debacle was at least accomplished with a minimum of loss and without the risk of rout. Diomedes charged his Argives into the teeth of the advancing Trojans, and I followed him with Idomeneus, Eurypylos, Ajax and all their men.

We had drawn our flanks up into the van; the army had turned into a tight droplet formation with its slender tail facing Hektor and the bulk of our men behind us, falling back.

Teukros kept to his nook behind his brother’s shield, his arrows flying steadily, always accurately. Hektor was hovering; Teukros saw him and grinned as he nocked another arrow. But Hektor was too wily to fall from an arrow he was surely expecting in Ajax’s neighbourhood. One after the other, Hektor caught the arrows on his shield, which infuriated Teukros into making a mistake. He stepped out from behind his brother’s shield. Hektor was waiting for him. His spears were long gone, but he had found a rock, and flung it in a cast worthy of a spear. It struck Teukros on the right shoulder, and down he went like a bull at a sacrifice. Too beset to notice, Ajax went on fighting. Ah, there! My cry of relief was echoed in a dozen throats when Teukros’s head showed above the carnage on the ground and he began to crawl across the dead and wounded to go to earth with Ajax. But now he was just surplus baggage his brother had to lug; the Trojans charged.

I cast my eyes desperately to the rear to see how far we were from our own wall, and gasped; our back lines were already streaming across the causeways.

Odysseus and Agamemnon between them kept our army calm. The retreat was concluded without much loss of life, and we fled behind our wall to the refuge of our stone city. Too dark for Hektor to follow. We left them on the far bank of our ditch and palisade, jeering and yapping at our tails.

25

NARRATED BY

Odysseus

It wasn’t a very cheerful gathering that night in Agamemnon’s house; we just sat, beginning the wearisome business of getting our strength back in order to endure tomorrow. My head ached, my throat was raw from yelling war cries, my sides were rubbed clean of skin where my cuirass had chafed despite the padded shift underneath. All of us sported minor wounds – grazes, punctures, gashes, cuts – and sleep screamed in us.

‘A shocking reverse,’ Agamemnon said into the pit of exhausted silence. ‘Shocking, Odysseus.’

Diomedes sprang to my defence. ‘Just as Odysseus predicted!’

Nestor nodded confirmation. Poor old man. For once he did look his age, and little wonder. He had lost two sons on the field. Voice reedy, he said, ‘Don’t despair yet, Agamemnon. Our time will come. And be the sweeter for today’s reverses.’

‘I know, I know!’ Agamemnon cried.

‘Someone had better go and report to Achilles,’ Nestor said in an undertone audible only to those of us in on the plot. ‘He’s with us, but if he’s not kept informed he may move prematurely.’

Agamemnon glared at me balefully. ‘Odysseus, it’s your idea. You see Achilles.’

I plodded off wearily. To send me down the line of houses to its very end was Agamemnon’s way of getting back at me. Yet while I walked, at peace and unmolested, strength began to creep into me again. I felt more rested for the little additional exertion than I would have after a full night’s sleep. Since any who saw me would assume after the day’s reverses that Agamemnon was sending me to plead with Achilles, I passed openly through the Myrmidon gate to find the Myrmidons and other Thessalians sitting about dolefully, avid to fight, rendered impotent.

Achilles was in his house warming his hands at a tripod of fire, looking as worn and nervy as any of us who had fought for two days. Patrokles sat opposite him, face stony. I suppose that didn’t really surprise me, given the advent of Brise. The relationship between Diomedes and me was as friendly as it was sensuous, a kind of expedience both of us found immensely pleasing. But if either of us fancied a woman, well and good. No disaster, no sense of betrayal. Patrokles loved, and had thought himself safe, permanently free of rivals. Whereas Achilles, like all men who burn for things other than the flesh, had not truly committed himself. Exclusively a man for men, Patrokles thought himself cruelly wronged. Poor fellow, he loved.

‘What brings you?’ Achilles demanded sourly. ‘Patrokles, find food and wine for the King.’

Sighing gratefully, I sat down in a big chair and waited for Patrokles to depart.

‘I hear things went badly,’ said Achilles then.

‘As expected, don’t forget that,’ I answered. ‘Hektor kept the Trojans hard at it, and Agamemnon couldn’t do the same with our men. The retreat began at about the same moment as the grumbling – the omens were all against us, the sky was thick with eagles flying on the left hand, a gold light bathed the Trojan Citadel, and so forth. Omen talk is always fatal. So we fell back until Agamemnon had to pull us inside the fortifications for the night.’

‘I hear Ajax met Hektor yesterday.’

‘Yes, they duelled for over an eighth part of the afternoon without a conclusion. You’ve nothing to worry about there, my friend. Hektor belongs to you.’

‘But men are dying needlessly, Odysseus! Let me come out tomorrow, please!’

‘No,’ I said harshly. ‘Not until the army is in immediate danger of annihilation, or the ships begin to burn because Hektor breaks into our camp. Even then you’ll tell Patrokles to lead your troops – you mustn’t lead them yourself.’ I stared at him sternly. ‘Agamemnon has your oath on it, Achilles.’

‘Rest assured, Odysseus, that I break no oaths.’

He bowed his head then and lapsed into silence. When Patrokles came back we were sitting thus, Achilles hunched over, I staring dreamily at his head of golden hair. Patrokles directed the servants to put the food and wine on the table, then stood like a pillar of ice. Achilles glanced at him briefly, then at me.

‘Tell Agamemnon I refuse to go back on my word,’ Achilles said to me in a formal voice. ‘Tell him to find someone else to extricate him from this mess. Or else return Brise.’

I slapped my thigh as if exasperated. ‘As you wish.’

‘Stay and eat, Odysseus. Patrokles, go to bed.’

Not in this house! Patrokles exited through the door.

Perhaps later I would sleep, but as I walked back I found myself so alive that I craved mischief, so I went to the hollow wherein my spy colony was still headquartered. Most of my agents not living inside Troy were sitting over the remains of dinner; Thersites and Sinon greeted me warmly.

‘Any news?’ I asked, sitting down.

‘One item,’ said Thersites. ‘I was about to find you.’

‘Ah! Enlighten me.’

‘Just as the battle ended tonight, a new ally arrived – a distant cousin of Priam’s named Rhesos.’

‘How many troops did he bring?’

Sinon laughed softly. ‘None. Rhesos is a loud-mouthed bag of wind, Odysseus. He calls himself an ally, but he’s better summed up as a refugee. His own people threw him out.’

‘Well, well!’ I said, and waited.

‘Rhesos drives a team of three magnificent white horses which are the subject of a Trojan oracle,’ said Thersites. ‘They’re said to be the immortal children of winged Pegasos, as fleet as Boreas and as wild as Persephone before Hades took her. Once they’ve drunk from Skamander and eaten Trojan grass, Troy can never fall. A promise, says the Oracle, from Poseidon, who’s supposed to be on our side.’

‘And, since Poseidon is on our side, have they drunk from Skamander and eaten Trojan grass yet?’